I’ve been asked about support groups quite a few times and been thinking how I can start this. It’s definitely something very common in western countries, I’m not sure how it will work here in Malaysia. Now I’m proposing the idea here, and for anyone who reads this and is interested in any of the support groups, please get in touch, let me know what you think and how we can start this and get it going!

To share the cost of a small administrations/materials/venue fees (if any)

These are just some ideas for now, if you have some ideas or are interested, please do leave your contacts (email or contact numbers) below or get in touch by emailing hello@huibee.com or calling/whatsapp 017-2757813

Sleep generally occurs in 90-minute phases repeated throughout the night. Each phase moves from non-REM sleep to REM sleep. At the beginning of the sleep cycle, the REM phase lasts only a few minutes, but in the last phase before awakening, the REM phase can last up to 40 minutes, and these late-stage dreams often stay in our memories as we awaken.

Dreams are largely confined to the REM, or rapid eye movement, phase of sleep. In REM sleep, we are also in a type of paralysis, and if this paralysis doesn’t occur for whatever reason, a deadly acting out of our dreams can take place.

When someone is sleep deprived we see greater sleep intensity, meaning greater brain activity during sleep; dreaming is definitely increased and likely more vivid (Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis.)

It has been observed that dream deprivation causes effects such as:

waking dreams (visual and auditory hallucinations)

interference with memory and learning

a loosening of associations

impaired waking ability to do tasks requiring focused attention

difficulty maintaining a straight line of thought

creating irritability and suspiciousness.

High dream recallers are more reactive to environmental stimuli [during sleep], awaken more during sleep, and thus better encode dreams in memory than low dream recallers. (more…)

Whatever people are exposed to during the daytime will have an impact on their dreaming at night.

You can have a negative impact on your dreams if you’re surrounded or getting exposed to negative things throughout the day. But, on the flip side, you can also have a positive impact on your dreams if the last things that you’re thinking about are positive things. (Dr. Shalini Paruthi)

How to have better dreams:While we can’t have 100 percent control over our dreams, there are things we can do to influence them in a positive direction, experts say. Among them:

In simplistic terms, if you want good dreams, sleep well and think happy thoughts. (Dr. Shalini Paruthi)

In Dr. Naiman’s view, your complaint of feeling tired the day after dreams disturb your sleep is not usually the result of dreaming, per se, but of attempting to deny, resist or fight the dreams. It is this struggle that can leave you exhausted. He notes that occasional bad dreams and even nightmares are a normal part of one’s dream life, also to keep in mind that even a negative dream can have a positive effect on one’s life.

About SLEEP

According to Antrobus, factors that can lead to poor sleep include:

consuming alcohol before bed

experiencing stress and having a disturbing day

keeping electronics like cell phones, televisions or computers in the bedroom

This thing has been ongoing from day one I started my job, it is usually with parents who are a bit concerned taking their children to get professional mental health care services, whether it is psychiatric, psychology, counselling services.

Their main concern is that this will leave permanent record/impact on the patient, affecting his/her future education and career opportunities and developments. So I have met parents who wouldn’t take their child to see us, or parents who argue over it, or parents who wouldn’t register their child’s name in our system and want us to use and call their (parents’) name instead.

I’m not sure what happens in government hospitals. But as far as I’m aware, all of the information we hold here in our systems is private and confidential. Unless we have the consent of the patient (or of the guardian for children or those that are less capable), or it is required by laws, we can never disclose anything to anyone, no matter if it’s their spouse, parent, supervisor from workplace or faculty head from college. I’d always add that if the patient has a very high risk of harming the self or others, we might need to do something about it (it’s often contacting the next of kin, which is a contact provided by the patient, who is already aware of patient’s condition and aware that s/he is seeing us).

So I can’t emphasise enough that seeking professional mental health care and help will not leave you with any permanent damage and record. If you allow the condition and symptoms to worsen, things can be a lot worse than what it is now.

However, with the patient’s consent, we do write medical reports, stating the patient’s mental condition and functionality. A medical report usually serve a specific purpose, like when one’s trying to apply for insurance (written to insurance company), trying to take a gap year from studies or work (written to his/her college or workplace), trying to change teaching location (written to ministry of health) etc. This is the part we can never guarantee. For insurance company, I would just hope that they deal with those reports professionally. And for a college, a company or a government department that holds one’s medical report, it does seem possible to leave a permanent record and affect one’s future. I remember there was a student requested to have a letter written to her favour, and few years later contacted us again to ask if it is possible to write another letter to waive off the previous letter… Surely it is not possible. Even if you’re now healthy and fit (even with 0.0001% chances of relapse), your previous record becomes your mental history, it doesn’t disappear and can never be removed that way. So, do take a deep consideration, before you request for any report submitted to anyone anywhere.